Album Reviews
Album Review: Derrick Hodge – Color of Noize
Derrick Hodge may have been flying under the radar of many as sideman with artists such as Robert Glasper, Maxwell, Terence Blanchard and Common but is here now with his third album under his own name. With such a high pedigree brings with it obvious anticipation.This album is impossible to pigeon hole stylistically. It is …
EP: We Were Promised Jetpacks – Out of Interest
Out now is the ‘out of interest’ ep from Indie band We Were Promised Jetpacks. The band hail from Edinburgh, Scotland and their ep is available on various listening platforms, including ITunes, Spotify and Bandcamp.Opener ‘When Getting Lost’ is a spacious and atmospheric start to the ep. The vocals have a desolate beauty to them, …
ALBUM REVIEW: The Streets – None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive
When The Streets burst onto the scene in 2002 with ‘Original Pirate Material’, it really was exhilarating zeitgeist-moment stuff. Mike Skinner was a much-needed, refreshing and relevant voice, and his musical portrayal of a loved-up rave-night experience will never be bettered. On subsequent albums however, his social commentator side became increasingly subservient to the “geezer” …
Album Review: Protomartyr – Ultimate Success Today
My relationship with Detroit post-punk quartet Protomartyr is a complicated one. I first heard of the band in 2015, when they supported Canadian noise punks METZ on their autumn UK tour. I discussed the upcoming tour with a friend of mine with whom I’d recently seen METZ, and he told me he really liked Protomartyr …
EP: Coma Wall – Ursa Minor
With little else to do beyond staring at a wall and quietly losing the plot during a global pandemic, Undersmile has done what many of us have done to keep sane – they’ve indulged in a little nostalgia, headed up to the attic and had a dig through their archives. Presumably, somewhere in the dark …
Album Review: JAF Trio – JAF Trio
JAF Trio are an up and coming young Finnish-Danish band featuring Adele Sauros of Superposition, Bowman Trio bassist Joonas Tuuri and drummer Frederick Emil Bülow. They won the We Jazz Rising Star at the We Jazz Festival in 2017 and now that very label are putting out the trios debut album The trio’s self titled …
ALBUM REVIEW: V/A ‘Come Stay With Me’ – a leg up for a virus-hit Leeds scene
IT NEEDS no reiteration that the ‘rona has devastated the working British music scene: no gigs, no festivals, no instores, no nuttin’. So in a little way, in response to the privations being experienced on the grassroots Leeds scene in particular, that city’s Come Play With Me label is set to release a compilation entitled …
EP REVIEW: Magik Markers – ‘Isolated From Exterior Time: 2020’
CONNECTICUT’s foremost ragged, slacker squall-rockers Magik Markers have descended from their years-long recess and deigned to bless us with the benison of a new four-track, download-only EP for Drag City, Isolated From Exterior Time: 2020, their first release of any kind in five years. The band, Elisa Ambroglio, John Shaw and Pete Nolan, said: “The …
Album Review: Mike Shinoda – Dropped Frames, Vol. 1
It’s a brand new innovative solo project from Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda; an album written with the help of his Twitch live-streaming community. What could be more lockdown, right? Released through Kenji Koboyashi Productions, Dropped Frames, Vol. 1 is an eclectic amalgamation of any and every genre you could think of, which is to be …
Droppin’ Knowledge: Meet Rising Bronx Rapper BA PACE & His Musical Collective PUBLICHOUSINGNYC
Rising Bronx Rapper BA PACE released his new EP, The Tower, this past week, an excellent collection of down tempo hip hop, that features his languorous, deep voice over hazy, scratchy beats. The artist, who was born in Washington Heights but now lives in the High Bridge section of the borough that birthed hip hop, …